Italian 10-years back over 7%

ForexLive

Dec. 16, 2011, 10:48 AM

Italian benchmark 10-years are now trading at 7.01% after falling as low as 6.80% after the Italian confidence vote. There was some confusion yesterday about differing quotes on Italian yields and a rep from Tradeweb has graciously stopped by and cleared it up. This week, Tradeweb shifted the benchmark 10-year to March 2022 from Sept 2021 and the longer duration carries a higher yield. The old benchmark is at 6.62% at the moment.

Perhaps more importantly, Italy must pay out a whopping €63.6B euros in the first quarter of 2012 due to bond expirations. That compares to the considerably larger German economy at €44B and France at €14B. Greece is on the hook for €14.4B and Ireland for €5.5B. The winners are the new government in Spain, who should have no problem refunding the €1.3B due.

The takeaway is that the focus will remain on Italy and Greece in Q1 while Spain sits on the back burner.